The Conservatives have vowed to reduce income tax and introduce a fund for cancer drugs if the party wins power at the Welsh assembly elections next month.
Other eye-catching promises in the Tory manifesto includes training schoolchildren to become first aiders, consulting on increasing the speed limit on two key roads to 80mph and reducing student debt by exploring the viability of introducing “compressed” two-year degree courses.
It also says it would be reintroduce prescription charges to those who could afford them, with some exemptions.
The Tories were the second largest party during the last assembly, but the steel crisis in Port Talbot and the Panama Papers revelations have meant the start of the party’s election campaign has been a difficult one. One poll has suggested the Tories could slip to third place.
In addition the Tory leader in Wales, Andrew RT Davies, has said he will vote for the UK to leave the EU, which puts him at loggerheads with the prime minister, David Cameron.
Launching the manifesto in Wrexham on Monday, Davies accused Labour of 17 years of mismanagement. He insisted that Labour, which has been in power since the assembly was formed and ran the last government with 30 of the 60 seats, could now be beaten.
Davies said: “Labour are now hanging on to power by a thread – and only need to lose one seat in this election to lose that grip. Wales has never had a better opportunity to secure the real change it so desperately needs.” His claim ignores the very real possibility that Labour will govern in coalition if it does end up with fewer than 30 seats.
Before the Port Talbot and Panama Papers problems hit the broader Tory party, it had been expected that health would dominate the assembly election. Welsh Labour’s handling of the NHS has long been criticised by the Tories in Westminster and Cardiff.
The Tory manifesto claims the state of the NHS in Wales shows that Labour is not up to the job. It says: “Patients and frontline staff are paying the price for Labour’s legacy of NHS cuts, centralisation of hospital services and missed key performance targets.”
Its promises include:
- Increasing NHS expenditure in real terms, each and every year over the next five years.
- Tackling “waste and inefficiency” with a Wales-wide NHS efficiency task force.
- Introducing a £100m cancer drugs fund for Wales.
- Training a new generation of first aiders by introducing emergency life-saving skills as a mandatory part of the school curriculum.
The Welsh government is expected to be given the power to vary income tax within the next assembly and the manifesto says that in power the Tories will cut the rate to allow “hard-working people to keep more of the money they earn”.
The manifesto describes the steel industry as “pivotal” to the future of Wales’ economy. It adds that the Welsh Tories will work with the UK government to secure a long-term future for the industry. There is scant detail in the manifesto about how this may happen.
On another thorny issue – the cost of travelling into Wales via the Severn bridges – the manifesto says it will support the UK government’s commitment to halve tolls on the crossings. It says the party will also consult on increasing the speed limit to 80mph on the M4 in the south and the A55 in the north in order to “get the country moving”.
The manifesto promises changes to the assembly, such as reducing the cost of the Welsh government’s annual running costs by 20%, cutting ministerial pay by 10% and disposing of the “fleet of taxpayer-funded ministerial limousines and encourage public transport use”.
